UPDATED

MUMBAI: After the success of his collaborative opus with Richard Clayderman, young santoor player Rahul Sharma now joins forces with the Egyptian Oud maestro Georges Kazazian on yet another journey of two cultures. The name of the latest album is â€?Confluence III – A Meeting by the Nile'. This is the third album in the Confluence series which falls under the contemporary world music genre – altogether Sharma has recorded 40 albums so far 

Sharma met Egyptian musician Gearges Kazazian at a world music festival in Paris, that's when the idea of the album was born, he says, I saw Georges perform at the festival and thought it would be great to make music with him. That is when the idea to make music with him was born. Later, we exchanged e-mails and I regularly spoke with him over the phone discussing music – during the process of making this album, we also heard a lot of each others music,... he adds.

Mostly, the album was recorded online – part in India, and part in Egypt. The technological advancements didn't really compel the musicians be â€?together' to record this album, I would record my parts in India, keep some space in the song for Georges to improvise, and then sent it over to Egypt. If there was anything that I wanted to discuss, I would call him,... he says.  

The 11 stringed Oud, and the 100 stringed Santoor have never been experimented together, and for die-hard music lovers and even musicians, this is what makes the album unique. Explaining the character of both these stringed instruments, Sharma says it was tough to get our tunings right at first, The Egyptian scale system is quite different than ours (Hindustani), but what exited me about the Oud was its deep bassy sound which I thought can go really well with the high pitched sound of the Santoor....

The album containing nine tracks also features bollywood singer Sunidhi Chauhan, Sharma says he has worked with Chauhan before and likes her adaptability, she is very versatile, and can sing in Arabic too with equal ease,... he adds.  

When asked if this album was more on Hindustani music side or Arabic, Sharma explains, The character of Arabic music and their arrangements is very strong, and for that reason, I have intentionally kept the weight of the album more on the Middle Eastern side... 

The album is due to be released by 22nd July 2009, and would be released under Saregama Label. The duo plans to perform series of concerts to promote their new offering after its release.  

TRACKLIST

1] Marhaba Jaanam, Vocals: Sunidhi Chauhan

2] Meeting by the Nile

3] Taj Mahal

4] Marhaba Jaanam [instrumental]

5] Nights in Cairo

6] Sunrise on the Sphinx

7] The Pyramids

8] Sheesha and Jazz

9] Marhaba Jaanam - [remix] Vocals: Sunidhi Chauhan

CREDITS

Tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 9 - Composed by Rahul Sharma

Tracks 2, 6, 7, 8 - Composed by Georges Kazazian

Santoor/vocals - Rahul Sharma

Oud - Georges Kazazian

Kanoun - Bassam Abdel Sattar

Percussion - Hany Beder, Moustafa Abbas, Medhat Mamdooh, Fredrick Gilles